


Somewhere, My Flower Is There

by magpiespirit



Series: Partners in Time [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Needs a Hug (Good Omens), Bureaucracy, Cherub Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley's Name is Crawly | Crawley (Good Omens), Dysphoria, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Forbidden Love, Gaslighting, Gen, M/M, Politics, Possessive Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Gabriel, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:00:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21743377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpiespirit/pseuds/magpiespirit
Summary: The enemy is petulant, demanding, reckless — and as much in need of care as anyone else. Beneath the sharp thorns and Hellfire there is a soft, vulnerable core Aziraphale wants to preserve, something no other demon seems to have. In the end, he can't just let the foolish, vain, wicked creature go around self-destructing, especially not after he promised to shelter and protect him.(An angel who tries to reach out to a demonwillget burned. That doesn't mean he knows how to let go.)
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Gabriel (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Raphael (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Partners in Time [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1505432
Comments: 20
Kudos: 82
Collections: Disabled Good Omens





	Somewhere, My Flower Is There

**Author's Note:**

> In _Velocity,_ Crawly is so self-involved that he can't imagine Aziraphale unrelated to himself, and what we forget is what it means to _not_ rebel against Heaven. This isn't long, but it does fill in some gaps while I finish Crowley's next journey through the ages.

He’d been built for service.

They all were, but Cherubim in particular had been built for protective service, and Aziraphale would not pretend that he might be more useful in another function. The Great War (and the subsequent Great Fall) had afforded all angels strange things, dangerous things, like _choices_ and _opportunities,_ but Aziraphale _chose_ to do exactly what he was designed to do, location and designation notwithstanding. Heaven didn’t need him anymore, but these new little creatures…

They were small, and vulnerable, and _terrified._

At first, Aziraphale struggled to remember that Crawly was not one of them. Crawly was a demon, and whatever his function used to be, it had twisted to be something else, something dark and irritating and (probably) nefarious. The problem was that Crawly was small, and vulnerable, and _terrified,_ and the function of Aziraphale the Cherub would sometimes refuse to bow to reason. So little by little, Aziraphale the Principality made space for Crawly the Demon, provided the frightened little thing didn’t hurt anybody or do anything too dangerous, and in return, Crawly made space for Aziraphale. To the angel’s surprise, he liked having that space. It made him feel, in a way, a kind of safety and companionship that he had forgotten was supposed to exist.

Crawly never looked at him like he was _wrong,_ like he was a snag in the perfect fabric of the universe. He did stupid things sometimes, and he hurt humans when he wasn’t careful, and he had an absolutely _awful_ knack for getting himself into trouble, but he was _very good_ at what he did. He never killed humans himself, he placed particular importance on human choices, and he...well, he was soft. It made him dangerous, as a demonic adversary, but it also made him inspiring.

The others wouldn’t understand, so he didn’t tell them. Not out of fear — just to stave off the _Compassion._ Poor, broken Aziraphale, so gullible, best to keep him safely on Earth doing a job nobody else wants where he can’t spread his queer notions to the lower Host. Why did no one else respect Her favored creations? Why did no one else look at them and see their _beauty?_ Even their most fiery rage was closer to the Almighty than the crisp, clean coolness in Heaven.

Aziraphale the Cherub, whose function it was to _guard_ and _protect,_ wanted to be soft _for them._ He wanted the humans to look at him like they looked at Crawly: with trust and respect instead of fear and awe, in fondness instead of submission. So he watched, and he preserved them all, Crawly included, as best he could, and in their quiet moments, he learned. He did his best to cast off the memories of war and wrap himself in softness, in _humanity._ It was a process, but the more he learned, the easier it was.

Discorporating his adversary was a necessary part of the job. He didn’t like it, but he did it, and each time he did, he hoped that Crawly would learn, too. It would be nice, he thought, to never have to do it at all.

* * *

The body was tight again. Everything hurt, from the tips of his toes to the edge of his scalp, from the inside out — Aziraphale had become accustomed to the sensation of being rather carelessly shoved into a body that didn’t quite belong to him, and most days, he could almost pretend it didn’t matter. It didn’t seem to bother anyone else who popped down for a short while, so the problem lay with Aziraphale anyway; no matter how many bodies he went through, no matter how many sartorial choices he made, he was just _wrong._ God had approved the system, so it was perfect. Any aberration, any flaw, was _individual_ error, so it had to be him. He had been an odd entity in Heaven, that oddity exacerbated by his careless injury that halfway cut him off from his compatriots, and he hadn’t done enough to fix himself. It, the tightness, was his own fault. The pain was his punishment, no less than he deserved. That made it all right.

Small pleasures, like meditating, helped. The discovery of alcohol had helped too; enough of it in his half-human system would create a nice warm barrier between the wrongness and the rest of him, a barricade between the angel inside and the rushing busyness that was Earth. He’d managed to hit that barrier when Crawly slinked into his temporary dwelling, not uninvited, but certainly without asking. Aziraphale wanted to say something about rudeness, but…

Truthfully, he _liked_ Crawly, despite himself. He loved Crawly as much as he loved the humans here, had done for so long he couldn’t remember what it felt like to _not,_ and he knew that Crawly, in his own way, loved him back. Aziraphale knew that there were Rules about love. He didn’t do it properly; Crawly belonged to him, and that meant Aziraphale ought to have been more demanding. But he didn’t care if Crawly acted out, or if Crawly talked back, or if Crawly did ridiculous things. He didn’t feel the need to exact obedience and absolute loyalty, either. It was a _tiresome_ undertaking, and measured obedience would change the demon into something else, separate from the person Aziraphale already loved. Crawly was a little better at this love business, demanding things, testing Aziraphale’s own loyalty — and that meant that the Rules once again went one way. Aziraphale didn’t really have the luxury of denying Crawly anything, outside of work-related fights, anyway, because if you did that, you’d get thrown away. That was what God did, after all, and God had _created_ love, so Her example was love perfected. 

(It worried him, sometimes, that he wasn’t as good as Crawly at performing love on people. But that was a thought for another time, when he was alone.)

To greet Crawly, he sent a happy signal to the body’s mouth and said, “Crawly! I’d worried you wouldn’t come.”

The demon made a face. Aziraphale wasn’t sure what it was supposed to mean, so he waited patiently, with the smile still on his lips, wondering if he ought to blink. Humans did it. He didn’t like having this ill-fitting, ridiculous, tight, unwieldy human body, but he had to be in it, so it was prudent to act like a human; did that rule apply to his time away with Crawly or not? 

“It’s freezing out there,” the demon grumbled, presumably as a response.

“Yes, the desert does get quite cold at night,” Aziraphale acknowledged, nonplussed. He set his unfinished robe to the side, making sure to miraculously secure the needle to the fabric. It would be frustrating to have to restart the line...or worse, step on a loose needle. “What brings you here to this village? No mischief, I hope? Only I’m taking sewing lessons from the locals, and we’re hardly through the first phase.”

 _“Sewing lessons,”_ Crawly mimicked. He dove for Aziraphale’s blanket and wrapped himself in it. “You literally have the power of God at your fingertips and you want to make your clothes like humans do?”

“I’m _integrating._ I have two blessings and an inspiration to perform in this area, but they need to be staggered. If I’m friendly with them, they won’t be put off by me any more than they already are. I can’t help what I am any more than you can, but at least making myself useful and being kind will...you know how it is, you’ve done it.”

 _You inspire me,_ he didn’t say. He fought to keep his own fingers from digging into the skin he was wearing. His stiff hand-wringing probably looked silly, but Crawly was the _last_ person who could judge him; the demon could hardly _walk_ properly.

Still, Aziraphale wanted to be more like Crawly. He had such a soft touch with them. He didn’t blunt-force his way through anything, preferring to whisper in the humans’ ears instead of using his powers to force their actions, integrating with the locals to gain their trust instead of bringing them to their knees. Angelic awe was useful, but it wasn’t a long-term solution. It was brutal, unforgiving, _unkind._ There was little room for doubt, true, but Aziraphale’s observations had led him to conclude that there was little room for faith, either. Aziraphale wanted to be soft and kind. He wanted to guard his charges physically and spiritually. He _still_ wanted them to trust him the way they trusted Crawly. That would probably never change.

The demon Crawly was inherently untrustworthy. It was in his nature. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be correct about his approach to human interaction. 

“Well you invited me here, so…” Crawly shrugged beneath the blanket. “What do you want?”

“I knew you were in the area. Thought you might be cold,” he offered. The rest of it, he couldn’t say. He didn’t have the words to explain the way he felt like a person in Crawly’s company, or the relief of being looked down upon because he hadn’t fallen, not because he was effectively broken and therefore somehow not as angelic as he should be. He didn’t know how to justify to himself, let alone anyone else, why he _put up_ with Crawly — never mind the rest of the feelings he had — so he kept that behind his teeth as well. 

“And what,” the demon sneered, “you think I can’t warm my own blessed self up?”

Aziraphale paused, befuddled. Where had that come from? He’d thought an extension of their old arrangement might make Crawly more amenable to companionship; if there was a reasonable explanation, neither of them had to feel too guilty about it. Neither God nor Heaven had seen fit to reprimand Aziraphale for keeping warm with Crawly back when the world was new, and Hell hadn’t seemed to have any feelings about it one way or another. But perhaps Crawly was beyond that stage. Perhaps Crawly no longer _wanted_ that kind of association.

Aziraphale really wasn’t very good at discerning feelings and thoughts like this. Humans were hard enough, but demons bragged about being liars. One could never know.

“I know you’re capable. I’m offering a night to you,” he replied carefully, trying to respect Heaven and remind Crawly of their shared history. There was something about the night that belonged to them. Crawly was more willing to be around Aziraphale at nighttime, more willing to be friendly, more willing to play pretend. It was a _shameful_ desire, but sometimes Aziraphale wanted to pretend he had a friend, and Crawly was the only one who ever indulged him.

“I don’t need nights from _you.”_ Notably, Crawly didn’t move from his spot under Aziraphale’s blanket. Perhaps he was simply giving a token protest, as enemies ought to do. That _was_ a good idea. Aziraphale had God on his side, but Crawly had to protect himself somehow. “Did you really invite me here just to...to what? Gonna teach me to sew, _angel?”_

Sometimes he wondered if “angel” was turning into a pet name instead of a pejorative. Sometimes he thought he wouldn’t mind.

“I just,” he said. Would it really be so bad to be honest with Crawly? What was the worst that could happen? “I wanted to see you. I worry when you go missing for so long.”

The demon’s face went flat, all sullen lines and soft ends, and then he replied angrily, “I know you’re an angel, but you don’t have to be such a bastard about it.”

Aziraphale watched him throw off the blanket and stalk out of the doorway into the night again, wondering what on Earth he’d missed. Sometimes, he reflected, Crawly was as capricious as God, and about as easy to read. Perhaps _that_ was the draw: not his helplessness, but his similarities to Aziraphale’s first and greatest love.

* * *

It was shameful, but Aziraphale didn’t like returning to Heaven. There was something empty about it — _sterile, vast,_ and _immensely sad —_ and the other angels couldn’t look at him anymore. He tried not to blame them. He was an aberration; he knew that he should be dead, and that the lasting damage to his celestial essence was repulsive. It was almost a joke: Aziraphale the unlucky, Aziraphale the foolish, Aziraphale the _Principality._ It wasn’t anyone else’s fault. It _wasn’t, it wasn’t._

But it ached, both the wound from the War and the constant reminder that he’d never be complete. He was a lesser angel now because of his own bad choices. He could have fought harder, fought _better._ He could have sought another healer instead of getting by on noninvasive miracles; maybe if he’d been a better Cherub to begin with, God might have granted him Her favor like She had with Michael. 

He’d learned quickly who his allies were. He didn’t have a bond with his fellow Cherubim anymore, now that his broken Wheel interfered with their empathic connection, and the other Principalities were a bit too scared of him to form friendships. The lowest choirs had mostly fallen with Lucifer, having heard his carefully-edited ideas on “justice” and “fairness” and decided listening to his speeches made more sense than investigating the angelic hierarchy, and most of the Seraphim were missing. He spent most of his time on Earth, so it made sense that Overseer Gabriel would be his closest ally; Michael had their reservations about Aziraphale’s long absences, Raphael appreciated his input on larger cooperative academic pursuits but otherwise tended to isolate from everyone, and Uriel was disappointed in him for his voluntary demotion, but Gabriel was a firm and fair advocate, and he never failed to look Aziraphale in the eye.

(Aziraphale’s _de facto_ inclusion in the small group of Archangels who had ended up in charge of the day-to-day affairs of Heaven was another reason for his unpopularity amongst other angels. Being on a casual, almost friendly basis with Gabriel was not an honor many others could claim, and in the absence of instructions from the Almighty, there were whispers about favoritism and favors. It couldn’t be helped, but Aziraphale couldn’t help being offended on Gabriel’s behalf, either. The condescension directed at him also reflected badly on the Overseer.)

Debriefing when Crawly was involved presented a problem that Aziraphale had never expected to encounter. He did not, of course, lie. But sometimes, he told the stories in a certain way that perhaps made events seem a bit different to how they had actually gone. In the bright, uncomfortably-cheerful examination area characterized only by a platform in the center of it — the whole thing looked more like a place of judgment than an infirmary — he thought quickly and came to a decision.

“I was guarding the humans for my assignment,” he said carefully, watching Raphael look over his essence with a clinical eye and firm appendages. It was unsettling every time the sensation of not-quite-fingers ran over the jagged edge of the broken Wheel in the region of essence that usually made up his leg. “I’d worried about evil interfering with their journey, and I was right to worry, as the demon Crawly was in the area. I invited him to sit with me — if he was with me, he couldn’t do any evil to them, and I didn’t want to disrupt the humans with a fight. It was nighttime, and sleep is important to human survival.”

“You should have just killed it immediately,” Raphael said tonelessly, furrowing his brow as he looked deeper into Aziraphale’s chest region. “Why didn’t you?”

“As I said,” Aziraphale repeated, “the humans need sleep. A fight would wake them. In the event that I did not manage to discorporate him the first time, a fight was inevitable. There _was,_ of course, a chance to lure him in and discorporate him when his guard was down.”

Aziraphale would never have taken that route. He did not feel that it was beneath him, but he was too fond of Crawly to discorporate the demon unless he had to. 

“He managed to tempt you into what looks like a bubble of lust.” Raphael raised the eyebrow of his humanoid social form. “Are you telling me you had no plans to do something sexual?”

“I would never,” he said, appalled, at the same time that Gabriel asked smoothy, “How is that relevant, Raphael?”

Aziraphale frowned and glanced to the side. Gabriel looked genuinely confused, but Raphael’s query wasn’t difficult to parse. If Aziraphale were considering sexual things with the enemy, that would be grounds for a recall. He shared a moment of bewildered eye contact with Raphael, who seemed willing to accept his answer, before the healer said slowly, “It’s a safety issue, Gabriel. Human incorporations have inbuilt weaknesses, and lust is one of them. Without some kind of shunt...well, you can see the results for yourself.”

“I disable most of my physiological systems when I’m down on Earth,” he put in, just in case it needed to be known. “Might that have been a factor? Humans have sexual relations with each other at nighttime. Could I have...accidentally opened myself while reaching for my power — to deal with the demon Crawly — and absorbed someone else’s lust, perhaps, and been...unable to...er, shunt it properly?”

“Yeah, that would do it. Though it shouldn’t have come down to it, Aziraphale — this Crawly has made too much trouble for you. I don’t see why you don’t just skip the discorporations and _smite_ him.”

“Crawly _can’t_ die,” Aziraphale exclaimed, unable to keep the scorn out of his voice. He felt sick, somewhere deep inside his spirit where his love for Crawly was safely buried. He was an angel of the Lord. He was a soldier, and during the War, he’d been a _damn good one,_ but he’d never had to smite anybody. Wounding them had always been enough. He’d never snuffed out a light, and he couldn’t imagine starting with _his_ demon; even if he hadn’t been fond of the Serpent of Eden, he was a _good tempter._ He did his best not to hurt humans directly, or coerce them into sinning, but his Hellish compatriots…

Gabriel and Raphael did not understand how it was on Earth. None of the Archangels did. Nobody in Heaven did, really, because even the other Principalities avoided staying on Earth for long. There was something about humanity that called for balance: as much as Aziraphale hated to admit it, if only angels had influence, humans managed to channel that Heavenly influence into violence. Thefts, murders, and abuses in the name of God were not things Aziraphale could condone, and there was always an uptick when Crawly got discorporated. He suspected something similar, but opposite, happened during the times when Crawly was alone on Earth, although the demon himself didn’t seem to have noticed. It was important that they both did their jobs, and did them well.

If Aziraphale had to deal with another demon, someone with a heavier touch and a propensity for violence, he would never know peace, and the humans might not either. 

“That explains...quite a lot,” Gabriel mused with a thoughtful half-smile. At least he hadn’t noticed the _source_ of the anger. “He was a nobody in Heaven, so it stands to reason he’d be a nobody in Hell, too. None of us could figure out why they kept sending up an unnamed waste of space to pit against an angel with a _flaming sword._ Immortality changes the game. Are any of the other demons immortal?”

“Not that I know of.”

The heretofore unacknowledged oppressive pressure eased, and Raphael sneered at the ball of pulsing bruise-purple light that he’d pulled from Aziraphale’s essence. Aziraphale leaned back on his elbows, feeling relaxed for the first time since he’d been discorporated by the fire. “Oh, my. I hadn’t realized how painful that was.”

“It’s lust. You held it inside you for so long that the demon managed to discorporate you.”

 _He did me a favor,_ Aziraphale decided not to say. He didn’t know how to explain the lust without explaining that Crawly had only been trying, in his own sweet (though clearly demonic) way, to thank Aziraphale for protecting him. It was better to just let Gabriel and Raphael come to their own conclusions. It wasn’t as though Aziraphale had much further to fall in terms of popularity or public perception. Only God’s good opinion mattered, and She had not expressed any disappointment. Not even over the sword.

“I’m sure Aziraphale did his best. It’s not his fault he didn’t see it for what it was. After all,” Gabriel said jovially, patting Aziraphale on the shoulder hard enough to make him jolt, “angels aren’t made for lust. Don’t worry, either of you. I have an idea!”

Gabriel’s ideas weren’t always as workable as the Archangel thought they were, but Aziraphale smiled politely anyway. Unless he wanted to pull rank over God’s _Messenger_ — and he didn’t; he wasn’t sure if he even _could,_ at this point, as they were no longer an active military — he officially answered to Gabriel in all work-related matters. He and Raphael shared another moment of eye contact, and Raphael’s expression said it all: he was thinking the same thing. It was unfortunate. Gabriel tried hard to do well at his assigned job. It wasn’t his fault that being an Overseer was fundamentally opposed to his function upon creation. He had been made to deliver messages, to distribute Divinity, to lead a Holy Song. This kind of bureaucracy (which was a thing yet to be invented by humans, but had already been discovered by Heaven for the same reason Crawly knew what a lead balloon was) taxed the Archangels, especially Gabriel. It was why Aziraphale never complained when he thought his consequences were perhaps disproportionate, or a policy decision was frustrating, or he earned more consequences for messing up conflicting orders that simply _could not be completed_ at the same time. 

(Besides, if Aziraphale couldn’t miraculously pull it off, wasn’t it all his fault anyway? He was an _angel,_ for Heaven’s sake, miracles were part of his design.)

“What’s the idea,” Raphael sighed, rather than asked.

“We keep giving him big bodies upon request. Maybe a smaller body might have less room for superfluous emotions and sensations!”

“That’s not-”

“Yeah. I’ll get my people on it. I’m sorry you had to go through this, Aziraphale, and we’ll try to rush the process,” Gabriel said reassuringly, and blipped out of the room like he’d never been there, an unnecessary show of power that nevertheless reinforced the new hierarchy.

“-how it works,” Raphael finished aloud. He rolled his eyes. “Well, the good news is you’ll be on Earth sooner rather than later. The bad news is I’ll probably see you back here quickly as well. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the Almighty skimped on the brains to spend more time on his smile, but…”

“She has a plan,” Aziraphale said weakly. “She doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Bit of a troll, though.”

“A what?”

Raphael shrugged and patted Aziraphale’s leg, right where the Wheel was. It made them both shudder. “You’ll find out. Not sure when, but I remember Knowing it before Time.”

Aziraphale had never Known anything except languages. He was glad. It seemed inconvenient, especially since Known things ranged from important events to Crawly’s balloons, whatever those were. Maybe it was silly, but in general, he preferred to discover things as they unfolded for humans. It was a slow process, but Aziraphale was a slow angel, so that suited him just fine.

* * *

Crawly was running from him, and had been for centuries.

That was fine. He could, and was in fact supposed to, encourage humans to thwart the demon’s wiles from a distance, and Aziraphale understood the need for self-reflection; he’d spent several weeks in isolation meditating after the Deluge, after all, trying to sort out his very unangelic emotions about Noah, about Crawly, and about effectively killing an entire Valley of people. Strictly speaking, those deaths hadn’t been his fault; they would have died in panic and betrayed anger had he not put them to sleep; but at the time, it had _felt_ like murder, and he only hadn’t allowed the flood to take him too because he had an obligation to shelter and protect Crawly, the demon who had slithered into his heart and made a nest there. 

Protection was Aziraphale’s calling, and he continued to do it, with or without contact. It was easy enough to follow their bond — when Crawly had stolen a bit of Aziraphale’s Divinity, he had created something between them that could work both ways, if either of them cared to nurture it — and, between ensuring that no real harm came to his _other_ charges, ensure that nothing hurt his demon. 

(Crawly was _his._ Neither of them had a choice in the matter, not that the angel would choose differently. The Serpent had given himself to Aziraphale, and Aziraphale had accepted. He wasn’t ever going to pretend that Crawly _wasn’t_ his, even if they had to pretend not to know each other.)

It was a good thing, in fact, that Crawly was running, because Aziraphale hadn’t yet been able to come to terms with the fact that he could — and did — feel lust in the way that Gabriel and Raphael were sure he could not. During their confrontation outside the cave after the destruction of Sodom and its surrounding cities, Crawly had wriggled and keened and begged for release, for _violence,_ and a large part of Aziraphale had hungered to give Crawly what he wanted. He had wanted to give in, and he had felt nearly helpless in the face of the naked, vulnerable plea for discorporation. He had wanted to kiss Crawly until neither of them could think. He had wanted to _consume_ him, and the only thing that had stayed his hand was his desire to shelter him, a desire that outclassed even his duty to guard Lot’s family (a family which, frankly, had needed _serious_ guidance of the type Aziraphale wasn’t capable of giving — whoever had decided _Lot_ was a good man needed remedial courses in goodness). What was that if not lust? It didn’t seem to be the human version he’d unwillingly observed in those early days. He had no desire to manifest extra parts and put them in Crawly, or have any parts inside of him. It was deeper, spiritual, _celestial,_ and he didn’t think he could face Crawly until he could imagine the demon’s hair without wanting to pull it, hold Crawly close, leave a trail of bites to make up for all the ones he’d taken without complaint or retaliation—

But he could still shelter. He could still protect. Especially from other denizens of Hell.

Pinney, the lust demon, may not have remembered their encounter from the dusty village so long ago, but it had left him with an aggressive hatred for Crawly, which he seemed confident in proclaiming. The angel wasn’t certain if he was being baited into a confrontation or the lust demon was simply too drunk to keep his mouth shut, but either way, he couldn’t let someone try to _hurt_ Crawly when he could prevent it. That was as good as hurting Crawly himself. It was as good as breaking his promise to shelter him, to love him. 

(If this distance was a test — and he couldn’t discount that; God tested Her loved ones with distance, too — Aziraphale was going to pass it. He would prove himself worthy of being loved, even though the last time he’d seen Crawly, he’d said no to him. He had denied Crawly the discorporation he had begged for. He had justified it at the time with his promise to _protect;_ Crawly was clearly his own enemy on occasion; but he wasn’t certain anyone else would see it that way.)

He suppressed his Divinity as best he could, which was a trick he’d learned to help him blend in with humans, and sat down across from Pinney with a smile. This was a new body, so it wasn’t an image that would accidentally bring back any recollections, as unlikely as that was. Aziraphale’s smile was likely cold and unpleasant, because it was hard enough to make his face show emotion, let alone emotions he wasn’t feeling, so he couldn’t make himself look friendly. All the better, really. Pinney deserved to be unsettled.

This creature had been willing to violate Aziraphale just to gain a little respect amongst the other demons. He had asked Crawly to hand over his “captive” to the Lust department to _play with._ That might have been, if not forgivable, then at least ignorable — Aziraphale didn’t care overmuch about the appetites of demons who weren’t Crawly, he _knew_ they were vile, he _knew_ they were vicious and violent, and Aziraphale could take care of himself against an underpowered demon — but another angel, alone, without the backup of a knowledgeable friend, might not have been able to defend themselves, and Pinney had intended to hurt Crawly too, so now Aziraphale had to carry around the metaphysical stain of having been the one to perform a violating act, reaching into the depths of the demon’s mind and altering his memories. A smiting would have hurt Crawly, too — Crawly, who had been unfairly enthralled by Aziraphale’s Inspiration, who had still tried to defend Aziraphale anyway in his daze of bliss. He hated Pinney for forcing his hand as much as for his unforgivable suggestions. 

“I hear,” said the angel, squeezing his hands together atop the table so that he wouldn’t reach out and do something violent with them, “that you and I have an enemy in common. I, too, have an interest in the demon Crawly. Perhaps we can help each other.”

Pinney squinted at Aziraphale with...some sort of expression. It was probably suspicion. That was, after all, a warranted response. Any human with an agenda against demons would be an immediate threat, and any non-humans with an agenda against demons would likely be indiscriminate in their hunting of demons. Still, Aziraphale waited patiently for a response. Millennia on Earth had taught him, if nothing else, the practice and value of patience.

“Who’s asking,” asked Pinney, “and what makes you think I want your help?”

“I know where he is, but I’m not stupid enough to think that I could handle him on my own,” Aziraphale replied easily, running over his options and settling on a falsehood based in truth. “The demon stole something from me. I’ve been tracking him, but I haven’t been able to confront him. You’re a demon hunter, aren’t you?”

Slowly, speculatively, but still drunkenly, Pinney told him, “...Yes. I’m a hunter.”

(Aziraphale suspected this wouldn’t be nearly as easy were this demon sober.)

Demon hunting was a niche sport, something humans had recently invented to make themselves feel better about the existence of the infernal. The poor things had no idea that their efforts were wasted, and aside from Crawly, very few demons had problems dispatching humans, so they often met bloody, violent ends with absolutely nothing to show for their efforts. It would likely die out quickly, as human fads did — demon _summoning_ hadn’t died out yet, but that was to be expected. Demons made deals for souls that were too good to be true, and Aziraphale simply couldn’t be everywhere at once. He couldn’t save everyone. At least demon hunters made it to Heaven, albeit after a time of harsh chastisement for taking the Lord’s name in vain.

“Let us go to a more private place,” he suggested, “where we can discuss our business without fear of eavesdroppers.”

“That seems reasonable enough.”

The lust demon could surely take care of himself against a human. He probably planned to extract Crawly’s whereabouts, perhaps even find out the value of the thing Crawly had stolen, and then kill the human Aziraphale was pretending to be. But Aziraphale would fight with his last breath to protect the only demon who protected the humans as fiercely as Aziraphale himself did. (The demon he loved. Oh, _God,_ what a precious liability.)

“Follow me, please.”

He led Pinney to a room that, miraculously, was empty. A set of precise wards in the doorway had hidden it from human senses and memory earlier, before Aziraphale had sought out the lust demon. He was not good at thinking on his feet, but he _was_ good at esoteric projects, and research; he had not been unprepared for demonic attacks since he had fought with Crawly for the first time.

Cherubim had lots of raw power at their disposal, but it was not infinite, and in a battle between a regular Cherub and a Lord of Hell, it was probable that the Cherub would lose; soldiers they may have been, but they were designed for defense. Without their Wheels, they were somewhat limited in their movement between planes of existence, and Aziraphale was even further hampered by his own injury and his lack of flaming sword. 

But Aziraphale had something that no other Cherub had: millennia of training with more spiritual weaponry. Spells, both ethereal and human, had been added to his arsenal. He could write offensive or defensive wards in the air, on his half-human skin, on another’s body if necessary. He had memorized the formulae for complicated transmutations that would render his enemy harmless, and could perform these miracles in a fraction of the time it would take for another angel to consider the possibility of looking up the formulae in Heaven’s archives. He could draw power from the Earth or from human faith and belief in _him personally,_ something no other angel had ever done, because he belonged to humans as long as they were under his care, and that power gave him the ability to adapt his methods — to use human magic, to understand it on more than an academic level. 

And, of course, he had his inhuman strength, if everything else failed. Pinney, a low-level lust demon led into a Cherub’s trap, never stood a chance. 

He wanted to deliver Pinney’s lifeless shell to Crawly — _look, see, I love you, I still love you, I will never stop protecting you —_ but it was as vulgar as it was condescending. He didn’t need to brag about his triumph over evil, and Crawly didn’t need to be bothered by the angel he was running from.

Yes, he thought as he transfigured the body into flames, and then into ash, taking care not to do any damage to the room. Better to stay quiet. If Pinney came back, Aziraphale would intervene again, and perhaps send a note of warning, but if this distance was a test, the only way to pass it was to let _his_ demon come to him.

* * *

He paced nervously, arms across his stomach so they wouldn’t flap about. Aziraphale had to put his foot down. He had to deny Crowley. It wasn’t a matter of Heaven and Hell; Heaven, thus far, didn’t seem to know anything about Aziraphale’s fondness for Crowley, and Hell only seemed to know Aziraphale as an annoyance. It was a matter of protection. By allowing Crowley to run roughshod over him, Aziraphale had indulged unhealthy habits. He had _hurt_ Crowley. 

“No,” he said halfheartedly into the empty air. “No, Crowley. You must _ask_ me for what you want.”

He would stop saying yes to Crowley’s demands. He would only say yes if Crowley _asked,_ and if it was a reasonable request.

This was a risk. Crowley loved him, and if Aziraphale couldn’t do as he was told, then Crowley might decide that Aziraphale’s reciprocation wasn’t good enough. It was already hard enough to think of what would happen when the world ended: Aziraphale would either have to watch his demon die, or beg for the Almighty’s mercy on Crowley’s behalf, knowing that Crowley would not want to accept. Knowing that mercy (and ascension) would mean losing Crowley anyway. Crowley was not Good; he did good things, but he did them for the wrong reasons, and he took care to remind Aziraphale of that, when he bothered to talk to Aziraphale at all. Mostly, Crowley showed up, took what he wanted, and left again, spurning Aziraphale otherwise.

(That was _fine,_ because he never took anything Aziraphale was not willing and able to give. It was _fine,_ because they loved each other, they _belonged_ to each other, and Crowley never reminded him of how wrong — how _Other —_ he truly was.)

“No, Crawly,” he added for good measure, just in case the name change didn’t stick.

He _could not_ in good conscience continue to contribute to Crowley’s self-destruction. He knew exactly what self-destruction felt like: he had done it before, had gotten stuck in his own head, had isolated and purposely gotten lost in academic pursuits and even considered discorporating himself just for relief from the _hurt._ But there was no relief to be found in Heaven, either, and Hell was Hell, and part of protecting someone was protecting them from themselves, wasn’t it?

...Wasn’t it?

He didn’t know when Crowley would allow him into his life again, but he had to be ready, so he practiced over and over in the meantime. The next time they saw each other, Aziraphale would _tell_ him. No matter what, he had to implement this new policy, even if Crowley tried to cite extenuating circumstances — because there were _always_ extenuating circumstances, and Aziraphale would lose his nerve if he didn’t push forward immediately.

Besides, they would likely meet again at another place full of humans and food. Crowley liked to seek him out in places like that. He’d probably tell Aziraphale to do something small, like follow him without asking, and Aziraphale would stand firm and deny the command and explain himself, and that would be that. Crowley was not entirely unreasonable, after all, just a bit selfish, as was his nature as a demon.

Yes. It would surely be easy. All he had to do was wait for Crowley to show up again.

**Author's Note:**

> Title quote from _The Little Prince,_ which is one of the only books I can recall in detail. There's a subplot in the book about love and friendship, wherein the Prince learns to love the Flower for who she is. The entire quote is "If someone loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself: 'Somewhere, my flower is there…'" It's all very cute and sweet when you're ten, which suits the tone.


End file.
